A Sydney primary school has been named as the world’s best building for 2024.

The World Architecture Festival has unveiled the 2024 winners of its most coveted accolades.

The Darlington Public School in Sydney (pictures above and below) was awarded the World Building of the Year.

Designed by FJC Studio, the school is set between the large scale of the University of Sydney and the finer grain of the Darlington terraces.

It replaced a previous demonstration school that had been constructed in 1975 but had reached the end of its useful life.

A specific aim of the design response was to facilitate diverse learning experiences and to provide an inclusive and collaborative setting.

This is particularly important as around 25 percent of the students are from aboriginal backgrounds.

In particular, the school aimed to celebrate aboriginal history as well as to enable the continued teaching of aboriginal culture.

Features include:

• A design which seamlessly connects the school to its surroundings and offers glimpses of the inner courtyard from the main entrance. This promotes a sense of privacy and community for the children.
• A safe and secure screen that protects the outdoor learning terraces and which provides a beautiful, dappled light that is reminiscent of the light passing through the leaves of the casuarina – endemic to the area of Blackwattle Creek.
• Location of the community hall, the COLA and the library being selected so that these become an integrated part of the surrounding landscape.
• The scale of the new hall responding to that of the adjacent church and the library sitting within the landscape to provide a softer and more organic connection to the community.
• Learning hubs which accommodate either 2 or 3 student groups and are distributed across two upper levels and feature diverse spaces. These include wet areas, presentation spaces, quiet rooms, informal learning areas, teacher hubs, and connected outdoor learning terraces.
• The preschool, though connected, maintaining a separate space for a safe learning environment.
• A design which emphasises connection to landscape and country, embracing sustainability with passive design elements such as sawtooth roofs angled to the sun, high-level glazing for indirect daylight, and protective curved screens for filtered daylight.
• An extensive collection of aboriginal artworks which has been preserved and displayed around the school. Provision for QR codes has been provided to enable a continued curation of the works as stories are uncovered.
• Reproduction of murals that had previously been painted on demolished walls. These had been photographed and reproduced in the cladding. This offered a tactile response and add a new layer of interpretation, preserving stories of the country for future generations.
• QR codes that describe the names and uses of indigenous plants. This creates a landscape which further contributes to learning opportunities and which reinforces the school’s commitment to a holistic educational experience.

The project was constructed by A W Edwards.

Construction was divided into two stages. This allowed for continuous operations of the school and avoided relocation costs.

Material selection focused on cost-effectiveness, durability, and minimized operational expenses.

The winning projects were announced at the Gala Dinner awards ceremony.

The ceremony was held last week at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Other Project Award Winners

The Pant Mei Noodle Bar LFS in Beijing designed by Office AIO took out the World Interior of the Year.

The Regeneration of Vitality – Shenzhen Guanlan Riverside Plaza by LAY-Out Planning Consultants in China took out the award for the Landscape of the year.

A full list of winners can be seen here.